Xmas, scooting Fox

We had a nice Christmas, although the weather was so bad (worst snow storm we've had in YEARS blew in on Xmas Eve) we didn't get to see all of the family members we hoped to see. Fox had a nice first Christmas overall, though. On Christmas morning he demonstrated how he could scoot backwards--his first method of locomotion! He still isn't much of a roller--he pretty much refuses to roll. Here is a video of him scooting backwards, captured the day after Christmas :)

Happy New Year everyone! It would be AWESOME if we received a referral in 2010, but very unlikely. You never know, though!

Baby Fox is 6 months old!... and Taiwan adoption statistics

oday my baby Fox is 6 months old. I can hardly believe it!  He grows up so fast.  He is now in the 90% for height, 60% for his head, and only 3% for weight.  He's a tall skinny boy, apparently!  The doctor wasn't worried, though--she said he is consistent and he is healthy, so we're not worried either.  We will keep making sure he eats a lot, though--I don't know how this little guy is so skinny since he is such a good eater!  I steamed and blended some spinach that Grandpa Dan grew, and so Fox celebrated his 6 month old birthday by eating some tasty tasty spinach.  He wasn't sure about it at first, but by the end he seemed to like it pretty well.  I've attached a video--this is definitely the messiest he's ever gotten!!



In other news, the US State Dept has released the total number of international adoptions in the US for fiscal year 2009, which is interesting.  Last year there were 219 Taiwanese adoptions, and this year there were 253!  So they are still on the rise.  It really is a pretty interesting table overall  (http://www.adoption.state.gov/news/total_chart.html)  As a whole, international adoptions are way down.

Adoption Movie Review #1 - Pinocchio

I've decided to start my series of "Adoption Movie Reviews."  These won't necessarily be movies specifically about adoption, but rather movies which happen to have adoption elements in them.  Rather than just give an overview of the plot, I'll discuss what the adoption-related messages are, and if I feel they are positive or negative adoption stories.  For my first review, I'm going to look at Disney's Pinocchio. 

We were babysitting my niece Ellie and nephew Theo last night, and decided to watch our DVD of Pinocchio.  I hadn't realized it, but it has been many many years since I've watched it!  I was struck by Geppetto's relationship with Pinocchio--it really is quite touching.  Geppetto wishes on the wishing star for his wooden puppet to become a real boy, and the blue fairy brings Pinocchio to life.  Although Geppetto is startled at first, he adjusts very quickly and before long he has Pinocchio snuggled next to him in bed with a matching night cap.  The next morning he is already calling him 'son', and Pinocchio is calling Geppetto 'father.'  I found myself thinking "wow, they are bonding really well!  What a great example of an older child adoption!"  While Geppetto doesn't exactly ADOPT Pinocchio, the movie really does emphasize the fact that Pinocchio isn't Geppetto's biological child--yet he loves him as if he were.  It does a great job of demonstrating that families are created in many different ways, and that a non-traditional family can be a wonderful, loving thing.  The only negative aspect I'd point out is the fact that the blue fairy tells Pinocchio he has to prove himself before he can become a 'real boy.'  Considering older children who have been adopted sometimes have issues feeling like they have to be 'good enough' for their new families and are fearful of not being wanted, such a concept might be distressing to some children.  Overall, though, I felt it has quite a positive "adoption" story.

Christmas decorating

We decided to go with a small tree this year, and ended up getting a potted tree that can fit on our table. We got out our decorations earlier today and decorated it with the help of a certain little elf.

One month

We have now been waiting for one month on Cathwel's list.  I find myself thinking "ok, so that's what a month feels like.  Now do I have 10, 20, 30, or 40 of those left until we get a referral?"  I'm not really anxious about it or anything--I've resigned myself to a long wait--but it is just interesting to speculate about.  Of course its been over a year and a half since we originally started the Taiwan adoption process, so one month is really a drop in the bucket any way you slice it.

Adoption Info #3 - Status of International Adoptions

In honor of National Adoption Day today, I thought I'd post this interesting article I came across.  It outlines the status of international adoptions in the US this year.  I have to agree that it seems international adoptions are getting more and more difficult, and that ultimately they will be phased out more and more.  While in some cases that will be good (i.e. it will mean that there will not be as many orphans in the countries and/or more children will be adopted within country), but in some it will be bad (i.e. the kids will just stay in orphanages or foster care rather than being adopted).  I predict the world of international adoption will be very different 5 years from now.

http://www.rainbowkids.com/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=683

Fox the Turtle

Taiwan Fun Fact #5 - Vegetarianism in Taiwan

Ah, two of my favorite topics: vegetarianism and Taiwan. I came across this interesting article, and just had to share:
http://www.taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=47665&CtNode=430

Did you know there are approximately 1.7 million vegetarians in Taiwan?  That is a fairly notable amount, considering the island only has about 23 million people.  This article actually mentions one of the restaurants (Jen Dow Vegetarian Buffet) that I posted about in my last Taiwan Fun Fact post.  I cannot WAIT to hit that buffet when we are traveling to get our future daughter!! 

In case anyone is wondering, Chris and I do intend on raising both of our children as vegetarians.  We are not vegans (i.e. we do eat eggs, dairy products, honey, etc), but we do avoid all meats (and, yes, that includes poultry and fish products).  We are hoping that there may be a birthmother out there who is vegetarian and would like to see her baby raised vegetarian, as well, and our family would be chosen because of that.  I would really love to know that we would be raising our daughter the way her birthmother hoped she would be raised.

Dossier received in Taiwan! We are officially waiting!

Yay!  We received confirmation that our dossier was received by the orphanage in Taipei yesterday, Oct. 25th.  So we are now OFFICIALLY waiting for our referral! 

Here is our current situation in a nutshell:
The estimated wait time provided by our agency is 10 - 36 months.  So we might receive a referral sometime between August 2010 and October 2012.  Or it may be longer - it is hard to say.  I would say it is extremely unlikely the wait would be shorter than 10 months, but one can always dream, huh?  Our Taiwan baby will be somewhere between 0 - 18 months old at the time of referral. And please keep in mind that once we receive a referral (i.e. we are matched with a baby), it will likely be 4-8 months before we would actually travel to get her.  So we might be home with her sometime between December 2010 and June 2013.  In other words, we really don't know when anything will be happening at this point--we are starting the long wait, and there is nothing further to be done at this point.

I say that, and yet there is a lot I'd like to do over the months we are waiting.  Chris and I would really like to start learning Mandarin Chinese.  I would also like to keep up on this blog and give my family and friends useful information on Taiwan and on adoption.  So please check back occasionally--I'd like to update here about once a week, but we shall see. 

I have added another ticker to the bottom of the blog - this one will be our actual wait for referral.  I'm going to keep the "...since starting our adoption paperwork" because it will be very interesting for us to see just how long it takes us to finally bring our Taiwan baby home--from beginning to end, with all of the bumps included.  Bring it on!!

Dossier to Taiwan!

I confirmed with our agency that our dossier was sent to Taiwan yesterday! Yay! I have a tracking number and I'm keeping tabs on it :) Once the dossier is received by Cathwel, they will notify our agency and we will officially be waiting for a referral!! Yay!!

In other news, the pediatrician last week said that Fox is pretty skinny, and since he's 4 months old now she recommended we supplement his breastfeeding with rice cereal. So Fox is eating "food" now, about once a day :) He's not good about keeping it in his mouth, lol. Here's a picture for your enjoyment.

USCIS approval!!

Big news, YAY! Today we received our I-171H form from the USCIS, approving us to adopt a baby from Taiwan! We are so pleased by the timing--we were told to expect a 30-90 day wait, and it only took 27 days. It isn't often that things move QUICKER than expected in International Adoption!
This is the last item we were waiting on for our dossier, so I made copies and we mailed all of our documents to our agency. Here's a picture of Fox 'helping' us do the paperwork for his little sister :) The timing was truly perfect...we were told that we couldn't submit our dossier to Taiwan until Fox turns 4 months old. Guess what...Fox turns 4 months old THIS SUNDAY. Yep, our agency will likely be receiving our dossier literally a day or two beforehand. I'm not sure how long it'll take for our agency to mail our full dossier to Cathwel, for them to translate the documents, etc. But at this point it is all out of our hands. I'll definitely post each step of the way--I'm hoping it won't be more than a week or two. I can't wait until we can say we are officially WAITING for our referral!!
Just so everyone knows, I do plan on updating this blog during the long wait, so please check back often. I plan on posting more Taiwan Fun Facts and misc adoption information. Plus I'm thinking about doing movie reviews of films that are adoption-friendly (and adoption-UNfriendly). So stay tuned!

USCIS Fingerprinting

Yesterday Chris and I got fingerprinted at the USCIS office! It was actually really quick and easy--much better than I'd anticipated. Now we just have to wait for our approval, and finish up our Dear Birthmother letter and our Photobook (the fun part!).

Final draft of homestudy, and mailed the I-600A

Ah, today I feel pretty accomplished. We received the final draft of our homestudy in the mail (huzzah for having an agency so close that mail arrives the next day!), and after work I mailed our I-600A form (complete with check for $830, certified copies of our birth certificates and marriage license, and notarized copy of our homestudy) to the local US Citizenship and Immigration Services office (it should arrive tomorrow). This is a step I have anticipated doing for probably close to 10 years - ever since I started looking into international adoption - so I find it rather exciting :) Now we have to wait. We were told it could be 30 to 90 days total until we get the approval, although during that waiting period we will be given an appointment to go get fingerprinted. In the meantime we get to work on the other parts of our dossier - mostly pretty simple stuff. I've already started working on our photobook (pretty fun!) and the "Dear Birth Mother Letter," which is a little bit more difficult. I feel the need to make it and the photobook JUST RIGHT, since I know it could actually be influential in the referral process.

In Fox news, he will be 3 months old day after tomorrow! He is sitting on my lap as I type this, babbling like crazy. He is getting SO close to rolling over, too! He's sleeping longer at night, too - he went 6 hours the other night, which was wonderful. Five hours is becoming pretty standard. Here's a picture of him on his new activity gym mat I got on eBay. His head is still pretty gigantic :)

Adoption Info #2 - Including cultural elements

Chris and I definitely intend on including Taiwanese/Chinese cultural items and events in our lives in order to help our future daughter feel more comfortable with her birth culture. We already have a lot of Asian cultural things in our lives, in fact. I thought the following article is quite interesting, as it talks about how having too much "culture" forced down one's throat can be counter-productive.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/08/23/one_overseas_adoptee_explains_parents_embrace_of_the_home_culture_can_have_its_costs/?page=1

I do think that adoptive parents need to really think about what type of culture they want to share with their child. The article really made me think about what it will be like for our daughter to be Taiwanese American. She will never be truly Taiwanese, as she will be raised as an American. But she can be raised to be Taiwanese American, and to be proud of the many influences she has in her life. I don't expect that she will ever be 100% comfortable in Taiwan, but I would love to see her be comfortable being around 2nd or 3rd generation Taiwanese Americans--individuals who are proud of their heritage, but don't try to pretend they aren't American.

Final homestudy visit

Today we had our final homestudy visit with BCS - we actually drove to Topeka (about an hour away) to meet at the office, which was interesting. I think it went rather well, and now we just have to worry about the dossier-compilation looming on the horizon...
Fox was such a good boy! Didn't complain on the drive, nor during the visit--he was awake and cheerful the entire interview. We have such a happy, mellow baby :) Today was also my first day back at work after my maternity leave. It was super hard to leave Fox this morning. Even though I knew he'd be very well taken care of by his daddy (Chris now works from home), it was quite sad to walk out the door and drive away from my baby.

Fox's first trip!

This past week we went to DisneyWorld--Fox is such a great traveller! We went to Epcot (my favorite) and the Magic Kingdom. Here are some pictures from our trip:

First Homestudy Visit!

We had our first homestudy visit with our social worker from BCS today! I think it went well. We, of course, cleaned our house like crazy just for the brief tour she took, but now we have a clean house at least! I think the meeting part went well - we spent a lot more time talking about ourselves than we did in our original homestudy. The next visit is scheduled for Aug. 10th (the day I go back to work...so I'm taking a 1/2 day that day) and we're going to Topeka for it. Bit by bit we'll get there!

Adoption changes..and more Fox!

After nearly a year on ASIA's waiting list, we have decided to change directions. We are concerned that the wait for a NSN infant girl from Chung Yi may be unreasonable for our situation, so we have applied and been accepted into a Cathwel program with Bethany Christian Services (no, you don't have to be a Christian to work with them) located in nearby Topeka. We actually were planning on using Cathwel originally, so we're excited to be using them--I've always liked the possibility of birthmother involvement. Fortunately we are able to get a refund of a lot of our fees that were paid to ASIA, but unfortunately we have to redo our homestudy with Bethany so that will be a bit of an expense and time-eater. The good news, though, is that once we have all of our paperwork in order, we will get to be put on Cathwel's waitlist right away - there is no waiting for Fox to turn 6 months or a year. Since Cathwel doesn't QUITE work on a waitlist system (i.e. referrals can be given out of order), we don't really know how long of a wait we are in for. I believe we were told it "could be as high as 24 months" - but I'm guessing it could end up being longer than that (some families are waiting over 30 months).

In other news, Fox is doing great and we love him. It probably sounds weird to some people that we're working on an adoption so soon after having a baby, but I'm so glad we are. We want Fox's little sister to be young and yet close in age to him, so we have to get things moving pretty quickly in order for that to happen. Here is another picture of my little son :)

Baby!

On Thursday, June 18th at 9:41pm my baby Fox Kirin Logan was born! It was a rough 22 hours of labor with 2 hours of that pushing, but well worth it. He was 8lbs, 13oz (big boy!) and 20 inches long. We've been home from the hospital a little while now, and we are both doing well :)
The picture was taken the day after he was born.
I'll update some more later!

Moving up the list....

I knew that we were going to be bumped up to the #1 slot on the "waiting to wait" list because of another family withdrawing, but I was shocked when I got an email from our agency saying that a slot IN TAIWAN had opened up, and wondering if we wanted to go ahead and submit our homestudy to be on the REAL waiting list. I replied, saying "wait, I thought we couldn't submit our homestudy until our bio baby was at least 6 months old!" and I got a response that "oh yeah, we forgot you were still pregnant--we'll have to skip you." Needless to say, that was quite frustrating. For a moment I thought perhaps our homestudy would soon be on its way to Taiwan! Alas, now we would have to wait for both a) little Fox to be born and turn 6 months old AND b) another spot to open up in Taiwan. With the way things are going with Chung Yi, it seems unlikely for the second condition to happen anytime soon. So we are continuing to research our other agency options, thinking we will likely have to switch our agency/orphanage if we want our kids to be close in age.

In pregnancy news, my estimated due date is now just 3 days away. We are getting anxious! Just can't wait for this little guy to get here. I'm still feeling great, so I'm not really uncomfortable or anything, but I just feel like it's TIME, you know? We drove around town today looking for the biggest hills we could find, having heard that climbing hills helps stimulate labor :) If nothing else, it was good exercise!!

Nursery! And 38 weeks

So today I'm 38 weeks along, so I only have 2 more weeks until my due date! My doctor thinks I probably won't go past my due date because I'm making good progress :) I think everything is just about ready for this little guy - the hospital bag is packed, we have everything purchased, the nursery is set up, etc. Here are some pictures of the nursery. The next time I post, it may be with pictures of baby Fox!

1 year

Today officially marks the 1 year point since we started the adoption process. We are still in the "waiting to wait" stage, though--we are on the waiting list to have our homestudy sent to Taiwan, rather than being on the waiting list to receive a referral. Although we started out as #6 on this waiting list and are now #2, all of that movement as been due to attrition, rather than due to referrals, which is sad. There have been zero successful NSN infant referrals since we signed on with ASIA a year ago. On Monday I will be 8 1/2 months pregnant, so we are not worrying too much about the adoption right now. We can't do anything adoption-wise until this baby is 6 months old, so we have some time to work out our next steps. We are researching other potential options for adopting from Taiwan, though, since it doesn't look like Chung Yi is receiving the NSN infants we are hoping for. So in another 6 months we could potentially be on a different path--but as long as it is leading towards my daughter in Taiwan, that is all that matters to me.

In other news, last week I completed my Master's degree! It is a big relief to have that done before this baby arrives--our timing worked out pretty well there. I don't get much of a break, however, because in less than 2 weeks I will be teaching my first class. Fortunately it is an online course (Issues and Ethics in Technology - a course for students pursuing their Master of Arts in Education), so it will not be noticed too much when I have to bow out for awhile to go give birth! I'm hoping to teach classes occasionally to bring in some extra income, because Chris will become a stay at home dad in the near future. He only has 2 weeks left of work! That is exciting, too. Before too long I should have pictures of baby Fox to post for everyone!

News article - US Couple Adopts Taiwanese as 1st Child

I came across this article about an American couple who adopted a boy from Chung Yi. I'm not sure why it made the China Post news--I suppose it is just a human interest story?

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/foreign--community/2009/05/08/207293/U.S.-couple.htm

8 months

I am now 8 months pregnant - and still doing just great! I feel really lucky that I've been feeling so good. I have a lot of energy (probably more than I've had at any other point in my pregnancy), no physical ailments, etc. I hope I can keep it up awhile longer!
In other news, I am very excited to be wrapping up my Master of Liberal Arts degree this week! On Tuesday I have to defend my Portfolio, then my last day of class is Friday, and then I will walk in Commencement on Saturday - busy week! It's been a lot of fun, but I'll be glad to be done so I can really start focusing on this little baby :)

Still pregnant!

Well, I'm still pregnant! I'll be 29 weeks along tomorrow (so about 6 1/2 months). So far I'm still feeling pretty darned good - no real complaints! A friend of ours offered the other day to take some maternity pictures of me (and Chris) that we could use for our baby shower invitations. This one is probably my favorite:

No NSN infant referral afterall

I heard from our agency that the NSN infant referral I thought had been received in December 2008 actually fell through. Not sure if it was because of the family or because there was something wrong with the referral. At any rate, the reason we moved up to #2 (which would be #5 overall) in line was because someone dropped out - NOT because there was positive movement in the line. Very depressing. That means that so far it has been 15 months and counting since the last NSN infant referral. If this trend were to continue, we would be waiting 6 years for a referral. :( Of course there is always the chance that one or more of the families ahead of us in line would drop out, but when you're only talking about 4 families that really isn't something you can count on. For right now (considering we have some guaranteed wait time because of Fox) we will just wait and see what happens in the months to come.

Yay for the 3rd trimester!

Today I am officially 6 months along in my pregnancy, so I am officially calling this the 3rd trimester (even though I have another 3 months + 1 week to go until full term). Fox kicks me like crazy these days..he's a strong little boy. I can visually see my belly move when he kicks, which is amazing to see. I haven't had many pregnancy symptoms at all during this whole adventure, and those that I've had I've been able to take care of with herbal remedies, so I'm certainly not complaining. I don't LIKE being pregnant (it is a rather uncomfortable experience), but I must admit I'm probably getting off easy. I'm hoping these last 3 months go just as smoothly, and the birth goes the smoothest of all :)
No real news on the adoption front. Seems the wait list is stalled once again. Just waiting for an update from our agency to see what's going on, and trying to keep my mind on other things (like baby Fox!).

New Year's cheer for Taipei orpans

I frequent a couple of Taiwanese news sites, and came across this article I thought I'd share:
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/local/taipei/2009/01/25/193591/Mayor-Hau.htm

Hope everyone has a wonderful Spring Festival! We plan on having some family over tomorrow for a homemade feast :)

We're having a boy!

I had my ultrasound yesterday and found out we're having a boy! We are excited :) Most likely his name will be Fox - we're still trying to think of a good middle name, so I'm open to suggestions. He is actually slightly larger than expected (I was exactly 19 weeks, and they said he's measuring 19 weeks, 4 days) and was VERY active during the ultrasound. The tech asked me if I'd had a lot of caffeine or sugar before coming in but nope, nothing of the kind. He was just doing somersaults and wriggling all over the place - really cute :) I made cupcakes with blue frosting for Chris and I to take to work this morning to tell our coworkers the news, which was fun.

Taiwan Fun Fact #4 - Vegetarian Restaurants

Chris and I are vegetarians, so I have been doing some research on vegetarian restaurants in Taiwan. I have been very pleased with what I've found! Taiwan (Taipei in particular) appears to be very vegetarian-friendly. Sometimes it is difficult to understand their websites (many are only in Chinese), but if you're interested, check out some of the links below:

This is a generally tasty-sounding place in Taipei with limited English:
http://www.easyhouse.tw/html/meal_01.asp

This is definitely a place we want to hit when we're in Taipei. I read a review of this buffet, and it sounds like a vegetarian's dream come true!
http://www.jendow.com.tw/all/allrestaurant01.html

This is a fantastic blog by a lady in Taiwan who does reviews (which is how I found the above buffet restaurant). This is a great site for ANYONE interested in Taiwanese restaurants - both vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike:
http://hungryintaipei.blogspot.com/

I'll probably post more as I come across them :)

Moved up on list!

I just checked ASIA's website (as I have a habit of doing compulsively), and noticed that we've moved up to slot #2 on the waiting list!! And this time it looks like we moved because someone ACTUALLY received a NSN infant referral! Or at least that's what the tables show - I'm hoping to confirm this. This is very exciting, since ASIA has not received a NSN infant referral in almost exactly a year. Since our little bio baby won't be born for about 5 months, we have about 11 months before we could actually submit our paperwork to Taiwan, even if we were #1 on the list. This makes me optimistic, however, that by the time we're ready to submit we'll BE #1 and will just have to wait for the next slot to open :) I'm certainly crossing my fingers!!